4 ms·

I don't think the concept is wrong: incentivize the creation of creative works. Why would someone bother writing a story if any publisher can just take it and n

by dtech 6y ago

I don't think the concept is wrong: incentivize the creation of creative works. Why would someone bother writing a story if any publisher can just take it and not pay the author? Modern copyright goes far beyond this original goal, dis-incentivizes or forbids creation sometimes and it used in all kinds of manners where it is a bad fit like software and hardware.

kevingadd 6y ago
The tattoo artist was incentivized by someone paying for the tattoo. If they think they were insufficiently compensated they should charge more. (I understand the position, though, and of course if people copy the tattoo the artist is not getting compensated for that)
fnord123 6y ago
The goal of incentivising work is nice. But the concept of copyright is busted even from the concept. The idea that you have a story that you wrote on your own dime and you're shopping around to publishers puts the authors in a tournament theory situation which is totally abusive. The other issue of bringing a document to an independent publisher (akin to having a Chinese factory build your devices) who could steal the IP is a contractual and security matter.
- dtech 6y ago
  It is independent of publishers. An author could have handwritten the books himself with no intermediaries before sale. Without copyright anyone who brought the book could replicate and sell it without restriction and sell it for cheaper, while the author doesn't get anything.
- snowwrestler 6y ago
  If you have no legal right to your creative output, you have no basis for writing a contract about it. You can't write enforceable contracts about things that don't exist. Copyright is the basis for contracts about creative works. Without copyright there is literally nothing to steal or protect.
FroshKiller 6y ago
Take two minutes and reflect on why people wrote stories before the concept of copyright even existed.
- dtech 6y ago
  There were very few people who made it their job. The ease and accuracy with which artistic works can be replicated and replicates in the 1600s and earlier was much, much more limited. An actor or singer didn't need this protection in 1800 because there was no film or audio records. You had to hire them to perform. It's no coincidence that the first protected works were books, because there was the printing press.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    Mass replication is older than you think. In Ancient Rome when poets recited, it was common for an amanuensis in the crowd to copy down what was being recited. Copies would then be made by a team of slaves and sold in the marketplace without any of that money going to the poet. And yet there was absolutely no moral outrage at this. The only thing people objected to (a famous case is Martial in one of his epigrams) was someone passing off those poems as his own work. That is, there is a stronger case across space and time for disapproval of plagiarism, but the notion of copyright only arose in the West a few centuries ago, and still much of the world does not take it seriously.

by dtech 6y ago

kevingadd 6y ago

The tattoo artist was incentivized by someone paying for the tattoo. If they think they were insufficiently compensated they should charge more. (I understand the position, though, and of course if people copy the tattoo the artist is not getting compensated for that)

fnord123 6y ago

The goal of incentivising work is nice. But the concept of copyright is busted even from the concept. The idea that you have a story that you wrote on your own dime and you're shopping around to publishers puts the authors in a tournament theory situation which is totally abusive. The other issue of bringing a document to an independent publisher (akin to having a Chinese factory build your devices) who could steal the IP is a contractual and security matter.

dtech 6y ago
It is independent of publishers. An author could have handwritten the books himself with no intermediaries before sale. Without copyright anyone who brought the book could replicate and sell it without restriction and sell it for cheaper, while the author doesn't get anything.
snowwrestler 6y ago
If you have no legal right to your creative output, you have no basis for writing a contract about it. You can't write enforceable contracts about things that don't exist. Copyright is the basis for contracts about creative works. Without copyright there is literally nothing to steal or protect.

FroshKiller 6y ago

Take two minutes and reflect on why people wrote stories before the concept of copyright even existed.

dtech 6y ago
There were very few people who made it their job. The ease and accuracy with which artistic works can be replicated and replicates in the 1600s and earlier was much, much more limited. An actor or singer didn't need this protection in 1800 because there was no film or audio records. You had to hire them to perform. It's no coincidence that the first protected works were books, because there was the printing press.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  Mass replication is older than you think. In Ancient Rome when poets recited, it was common for an amanuensis in the crowd to copy down what was being recited. Copies would then be made by a team of slaves and sold in the marketplace without any of that money going to the poet. And yet there was absolutely no moral outrage at this. The only thing people objected to (a famous case is Martial in one of his epigrams) was someone passing off those poems as his own work. That is, there is a stronger case across space and time for disapproval of plagiarism, but the notion of copyright only arose in the West a few centuries ago, and still much of the world does not take it seriously.